By , ,
Published December 23, 2015
A mystery donor has donated $1 million to The Tea Party Patriots and the group says it will pour the money into 2,800 smaller affiliate groups across the country in time for the November 2nd midterm elections.
The announcement was made Tuesday at a news conference in Washington, DC. Check out this segment about the donation on Your World with Neil Cavuto.
"That million dollar grant fund is not for Tea Party Patriots, but intended to go out to the groups on the ground in the field," said Tea Party Patriots National Coordinator Mark Meckler.
Meckler and fellow National Coordinator Jenny Beth Martin refused to give in to repeated attempts from reporters to reveal the identity of the anonymous donor. They would only say that he is a businessman and an entrepreneur who made his anonymity a key component of his gift.
As a 501(c)4 entity under the federal tax code, Tea Party Patriots is not regulated by federal campaign finance laws and therefore not required to reveal its funding sources.
That status also means by law, the money cannot be used for direct election activities.
Meckler said they will monitor the donations to make sure none of the money goes to directly support or attack any particular candidate.
Tea Party Patriots plans to take all funding applications by September 26th and get the money into the field by October 4th.
"The goal is to provide capital to small capital starved organizations to allow them to double and triple down on what they have," said Meckler. "So that the values that we profess as an organization can have the most possible impact during this cycle."
Martin and Meckler also had a direct message for President Obama.
"Yesterday President Obama issued a challenge to tea party groups on how to address the spending problems of Washington and the budget problems and we're happy to take him up on that," said Martin. "We're asking local supporters from around the country to go to teapartypatriots.org, fill out our form and write the suggestion that you would like to send to President Obama and then we're happy to forward all of that to the White House."
Shedding light on the rivalry between some tea party organizations, Meckler also took a not-so-oblique shot at 'The Tea Party Express,' calling it a political action committee, "designed to make political expenditures based on what a small elite leadership team based out of a Republican consulting firm in Sacramento decides is good in any particular race. That's essentially the exact opposite of how we operate. What we're interested in is supporting people on the ground who actually live in those places who are making decisions about what's best for their lives."
https://www.foxnews.com/politics/tea-party-group-receives-anonymous-million-dollar-donation-accepts-obamas-challenge